I’m a single mom raising two teenage daughters and working outside the home. Which means that stuff around my house doesn’t always get done in a — shall we say — timely fashion.
Oh, I’m also a world-class procrastinator.
But sometimes that can be a good thing…
THE TALE OF LIGHTS
Oh how my lovely Christmas lights
lit up our house last year:
a sparkling sight on wintry nights
for neighbors far and near.
I loved ‘em so, I left them up
all through January.
When Valentine’s Day rolled around,
they kept our hearts so merry.
March blew in, then April came,
and still they twinkled on
as robins pecked and pulled at worms
upon our greening lawn.
In May and June and then July
the days grew long and hot.
The nights were short and filled with stars,
but still, I thought, “Why not?”
And so those lights that I had strung
to welcome last year’s Yule
stayed up throughout the summertime,
till kids went back to school.
In fall, when leaves of orange and gold
lay gathered on the ground,
the lights hung high — it seemed that I
might never take them down.
As we gave thanks for family, friends
and food for us to sup,
I realized a year had passed
since I’d first hung them up.
Three hundred sixty-some odd days
those bulbs had stayed entwined
around the pillars of my porch,
but I? I didn’t mind.
The Christmas spirit, some might say,
had led me to the act
of leaving lights to shine all year —
but really, here’s the fact:
It’s quite a wondrous testament
(notes one who now believes)
to all the beaming brilliance
that laziness achieves.
©2013 Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz
The Well-Versed Mom 